Lange and Dawson talk about “Kings of Tort” — then have to defend it

The monthly luncheon of the Stennis Capitol Press Corps is usually a calm affair. A speaker gives a presentation, takes a few benign questions from the audience and everybody heads back to the office. Controversy and consternation are rarely on the menu.

That was not the case today.

Alan Lange and Tom Dawson were today’s keynotes. The two have written a book — “Kings of Tort” — that chronicle the judicial bribery cases that have landed Dickie Scruggs, Paul Minor and a handful of former plaintiffs’ attorneys in prison. Lange, publisher of yallpolitics.com, and Dawson, who was lead prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oxford in the Scruggs cases, listed as their primary reason for writing the book the need for a data-driven, fact-based narrative about the corruption cases that have brought down some pretty powerful people. MBJ Staff Writer/Researcher Stephen McDill takes a look at the book here.

When Lange and Dawson opened the floor for questions, the first hand that went up belonged to Steve Seale, an attorney with Wise Carter Child and Caraway in Jackson. He shook his head in the universally recognized symbol for “no” a lot during the time Lange and Dawson were at the podium.

Seale took issue with Lange and Dawson’s assertion that they wrote the book purely to provide a blow-by-blow account of the Scruggs and Minor proceedings, and suggested that their motives had more to do with money than posterity.

“You would never had been heard of (without the notoriety of the Scruggs case),” Seale told Dawson. “You wrote it because it was Dickie Scruggs, you wrote it because it’s Mississippi, you wrote it because it’s corruption and that kind of corruption is something the public is always going to pay attention to.”

Seale then challenged the notion Dawson had that Judge Henry Lackey, who blew the whistle in the Scruggs deal, the FBI agents who investigated the case and the judges who presided over it were heroes.

“These are people who should do what they did because it’s their job.”

Seale also seemed offended at Dawson’s opinion that the legal profession had been damaged by the case.

“It’s been damaged only by people who didn’t do what they were supposed to do.”

Seale is a former chief counsel to former Sen. Trent Lott, who is Scruggs’ brother-in-law. It’s not a stretch to say that his opinion of the subject matter of “Kings of Tort” is influenced heavily by that fact.

For his part, Dawson said personal profit “was not the moving force behind the decision to write this book. I want a historical record out there of what happened. This was not a routine bank robbery. This was not some dope gang doing drive-bys. These were some of the most powerful people in this state, maybe beyond. They had the ability to destroy lives and attempted to do so. I don’t think you can discount the fact that so many people stood up and did the right thing. A lot of people would have backed away from this.”

Dawson did say that he “certainly hoped” that the book would sell well.

After Seale and Dawson went back and forth, Dawson talked a lot about the beginning of the undercover investigation kicked off after attorney Timothy Balducci attempted to bribe Lackey, who then reported the attempt to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

“The most amazing thing is we kept this thing secret for eight months in a town like Oxford,” said Dawson, who has since retired from the Justice Department.

When it was over several members of the audience paid $27.95 for a copy of the book. In one of the most ironic things Magnolia Marketplace has ever seen, Seale was among them.

I have read the book and find it dynamite in its’ exposing, clearly, the corruption of Scruggs and Minor. It is amazing that these two hoodlums thought that they could live above the law and use it to line their pockets at will and push people around. Apparently they did that for awhile but as the saying goes, “what goes around comes around.” They have finally gotten their just rewards for their unjust actions. If the appeals court should somehow let Minor off the hook (and I don’t see how they possibly could) it would be one of the most tragic miscarriages of justice of the Century (and I won’t go into the OJ thing)but of that magnitude. Some have said Minor’s sentence of 11 years was too harsh- I believe it was too soft. Great work by two outstanding people to put this all together so beautifully.

Minor should have had to give up his mega-multimillions he made using the system and cheating the people. Now he will just serve his time and then lavish himslf with it when he gets out. That is just not right.

I suppose there is a different standard for opinion writers and/or bloggers than there is for a real journalist. At least there seems to be no standard with respect to this account in this blog. You made no attempt to discuss this matter with me outside your own account of what was said (somewhat accurate) by me and by Mr. Dawson in response to my statement and question. And you quoted me correctly in the portion of what I said that you quoted. But, you did so out of proper context. I have no ethical or other objection to Alan Lange writing a book. After all, he has been “blogging” on this subject for some time (by the way, you chose not to comment on his obvious dig at the “real” journalists in the room as he began his remarks or to question his motivation regarding that dig). I do have concerns about Mr. Dawson’s role and said so. To amplify, I don’t believe a prosecutor (particularly one with the major role Mr. Dawson had in this case) should profit in any way from the sale of a book or otherwise about the investigation or the prosecution of the parties concerned. While I don’t question the fact that he followed whatever rules are established in this regard, Mr. Dawson himself spent several paragraphs at the beginning of the book explaining how he followed such rules and why he felt it was his duty to the public to participate. One question: absent participation in any profits/pay for being an author, why didn’t Mr. Dawson just make himself available to Mr. Lange as a source for the information in the book? As for my own motivations/concerns, I would have been happy to explain those if you had simply chosen to ask. You didn’t. Poor journalism. Again, an opinion. As for buying the book, I don’t endorse anything I read or the motivation behind same simply because I read something even if I have to purchase it to do so. I don’t do that even with the Mississippi Business Journal even though I generally benefit by reading it. My motivation in buying and reading this book was to review one (collaborative) perspective on the events and issues dealing with something I was tangentially involved in as Sen. Lott’s counsel (the attempted tobacco legislative settlement) and some of the people (Dick Scruggs, Zach Scruggs, Sid Backstrom, Mike Moore, and others) that I served in government with (Moore) and litigated AGAINST (Scruggs). One last comment. I believe that those that serve in government have a duty to do what’s right on all occasions … not merely when presented with a situation like the one presented to Judge Lackey. I’m glad he did what he did … and the other players did what they did … but I expected no less of them as their jobs REQUIRED them to do so. That was the duty and choice I made when I served in the U. S. Navy, in state government and working for Sen. Lott. If you want to question my reasoning and/or motivation, at least do me the courtesy of asking me to explain before you comment.

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